Sight
by RuGrimm
Summary: For miles, he has traveled like this. The snow fields of Faerghus are endless this time of year. He stops by a dead tree-the only one for miles-and looks at jutting mountains in the distance. Their peaks touch the far horizon, and like teeth, they eat at the world of ivory. As dark settles, the dying light catches their fangs, and a single light remains over when night whisks away.
1. Winter

**Author's Note:**

Hello, my ducklings! It's been quite a while. I've been working on this project for a few months now, and I'm happy enough where it is to finally publish it. The formatting WILL be strange, but it IS important. Things change, so don't expect the same eyesore for very long. The way I have it is to express something I find important to the piece, and I'm interested in seeing who figures it out first.

* * *

Footprints. Footprints in the mud. They are bird footprints.

Where they are; why they are. Does he care?

His vision is obscured by the frigid winds, eye stinging as the wetness in it glazes, freezing and contracting. It's painful.

_"__Good."_

His mouth and chin feel wet, his breath pushed back against him by his scarf. It's hot and uncomfortable; he wants to take it off. Maybe the rest of his face will freeze.

_"Is that bad?"_

He steps over the footprints and makes his own, burying the past beneath the path he treads. Boots sinking to his ankles, he drags the tips of his toes across the thin, flaky white smattering gathering over the muck. The imprints he leaves behind are not his own. Where is the injured animal? Where is the beast crawling in the rain and snow? Behind him, he drags the tip of his lance through the ruts carved out of the land by the bitter, icy rain, and water freezes to the steel. The wind brushes over the lines in the mud, and the path of the beast is lost in white.

For miles, he has traveled like this. The snow fields of Faerghus are endless this time of year. He stops by a dead tree-the only one for miles-and looks at jutting mountains in the distance. Their peaks touch the far horizon, and like teeth, they eat at the world of ivory. As dark settles, the dying light catches their fangs, and a single light remains over when night whisks away the sun. He, with a dragging lance, and fur cape fringed with icy needles, walks to it.

The door opens.

Through its mouth the wind blows, laying a dusted path of cold proveyance, but no one minds it or the man-creature it brings. In the frame, a tall shadow edges between the dim light ahead and the darkness that swallows and distorts the edges of its figure. Its shoulders bear its mane, ruffled and pulled to its ears to protect them from the cold. Although it shakes its coat and bares its fangs, the animal is silent; it makes no sound other than the frustrated heartbeat against the door, claws, disguised as boots, knocked against the frame to loosen the contagious white. Some falls. Some stays. And then the beast enters.

The door closes.

The stranger walks through the dust of white he allowed to trespass. His feet are heavy, thumping against the wooden floor like a war drum. He makes his way through throngs of shadows, and he sits at a lonesome table. Lance laid against the neighboring wall, he grinds his toes against the table's center support.

He looks down. People pass his table with no regard. There's the cobbler's shoes. There's the miller's and the carpenter's. And there's the town's guards'. The first three's feet are heavy and uncertain-stumbling. The guards are stationary, watching the inanity over a game of maw. Voices accompany them all, but they never register. He's heard enough voices for a lifetime. Laughter joins with frothy mead, poured into steins, and gurgling giggles. Dull light tiptoes to the boundaries of the stranger's vision, but he doesn't dare to touch it. He wants only warmth, and this place has plenty of that to spare. It's the kind of warmth of Home: the one that touches heart and soul. It's not enough to thaw some things.

_Thunk!_

"It's on the house, strange-ah."

He gazes up to where his hands have been laying. Above them, on the table, a stein sits with honey ale overflowing its rims. It sloshes for a moment, and then it settles.

"No thank you," he grunts.

There's a weight on the opposite side of the table, and now, there are arms crossed behind the stein. "Faerghus winters are brutal. Ya look cold, 'un. This should 'elp."

"I'm fine."

"Fine, huh?"

It's a woman. He can tell from her arm sleeves. And the voice. And her hands...hands reaching toward him to push the stein forward. Pale. Lined with callouses that make ladies into women.

"I ain't seein' one of my customers freeze to death. Nevermind the 'andsome ones. Drink up."

He argues with her for a time. Banter exchanges like coin to ale in this establishment.

Honeyhall Inn-a small tavern-inn in Conand… Conand where he killed his best friend's brother; even the good ones find dark paths… He'd never been here before, but the best friend had mentioned it a time or two before when talking about places to pick up women back home. Is he still chasing skirts?

Academy boys talking skirts. "_That was then."_

Once academy boys-now fugitive soldiers of a broken country-talking war. _"This is now."_

_"_ _Can you chase skirts from the grave?" _

The carpenter's shoes shuffle quickly. A stein falls to the ground. The miller laughs. The town guards mutter something about "stupid drunks," and their shoes trudge to the carpenter's.

"Got a name, or am I to keep callin ya 'Strange-ah?'"

"Glenn."

_"__It's too human."_

"Is that a real name?"

He doesn't answer.

"Well then, '_Glenn,_' ya seem like ya're in need of companay."

"Go away, rat." He glances up from the dying bubbles of his drink to bared shoulders. They sharply contrast his own: wide, scars hidden beneath armor and cloak. When he tenses, the cloak becomes a lion's mane, and he bares his teeth.

"Ya know, ya have a very beautiful, blue eye."

A deep sigh pushes the black breastplate of his armor forward, and the stranger stares daggers into that flawless, pale flesh-takes note of the flattering shapes her bones make under the canopy of her skin. There's a freckle, lonely, on that right, exposed shoulder. A strand of red hair makes it into his vision. He checks his claws for a similar red. Yes, it is still there. No, he cannot wash it off.

"What 'appened to the other one?"

The sound of breaking bone-he can hear it from across the room and feel it in his knuckles. Red craves more red, and the cobbler craves to know why the carpenter's sleeping with his wife. The maw cards scatter on the ground as the guard gets involved, steel greaves catching on chairs and table legs.

"Did ya lose it in a battle? Ya don't look like a common soldier. Are ya a nobleman, bychance? Any relation to Gautier?"

Baring fangs, the beast stands from his chair, digs into the purse on his belt, and throws a coin on the table. It lands askew, clipping the stein, rolling on its side in circles, and sucked into its centerpoint where it thrashes until held still by gravity.  
"Take it and leave me alone."

Her heels tap to the rhythm of his retreating wardrum. "I don't suppose ya'll want a room for the night, would ya?" There's a heat in his hand. A table clatters on the ground. The guards yell something like "KNOCK IT OFF, YA BLOODY DRUNKS!" but their feet are as uncertain as the carpenter's feet and the cobbler's feet and miller's feet and each other's feet and the monster...

It's constricting-this heat-and he glances away to the tavern keeper's feet as he runs over to the bodies rolling on the ground. It squeezes. The tavern keeper is screaming now. What use are drunk guards, guards who were too young when the war started to be drafted away and hardly men now?

"Ya're cold. It's only gonna get warse. If ya go out there, ya'll freeze. Stay."

_"__It's too warm."_

There are fingers dancing between his claws, pulling him toward somewhere else, and he's powerless to stop them. The wardrum stutters. Follows the bird's footprints. He watches a cream skirt glide over ale stains and maw cards. In the background, the voices become droll once more. Lights are dimmer. Scent of burning wax is stronger...more to his height. The candles lead to the back bedroom, and the heat leaves his hand...heel retreating to somewhere in the far left of the room. Standing barely over the threshold, he looks up only to stare at the window on the opposite wall. Snow has turned into the dreadful ice rain Faerghus is known for. The water pricks on glass, needlelike-piercing thought.  
_"You belong out there."_

Heat rushes into the room; the smoke is acrid. _"The city is burning."_ She's stoked the fire, life given to the machinations of destruction. _"Where is the lance? Shouldn't have left it."_ Returning, she approaches when his eye finds her heels again. The heels take a step forward. The beast takes a step back.

"I'll get ya're lance, 'un. Is there anyt'ing else ya need?"

His mane shakes with his head. Heels retreat back into the hallway. The door closes. He's left alone in the warming room. When will she come back?  
_"She'll come back and kill you."_

He imagines her returning through the door...imagines her lunging at him with his own weapon, skewering him through like a boar. In his mind's eyes, he's thrashing as she twists the steel. With one hand, he catches the handle, takes her by the temples with the other-applies pressure till her skull cracks like hot glass exposed to a sudden freeze. She goes limp, dangling from his grip and leaving scarlet stains on his hands. The beast limps over her still twitching carcass without devouring his prey, walks out the door as he wrenches the weapon from his body-another scar.  
_"Kill her before she gets the chance." _

He stands like the dead tree. Floorboards are made of deadwood. They'd catch on fire easily, if given the opportunity. Nearby, the flames are struggling to breathe-not yet rooted. But there's still heat in the far end of the room nonetheless. The beast nears it, but doesn't approach it. Instead, he takes interest in the bed. He hasn't seen one in weeks. His claws test the blankets, trace the fragile stitching of the folded quilt at the foot. With his paw, he presses down on the mattress, watching it swallow his hand slowly. Wind throws the needles at the window with greater velocity.

The door opens.

He hears the metal click of the lance against the wall. She's laid it next to the door.

"Is it warm enough for ya?"  
_"Too warm."_  
He nods.

"Are ya sure?"  
_"It's too warm."_  
He nods.

"Ya be needin' any comapanay? If it's companay ya want, I'd give it to ya."  
_"You're too warm."_  
He nods. He nods, but he doesn't know why he nods.

She's silent. The heels are silent. She takes up the same space as the flames. He can't see the tan skirt, but he knows where she is. The voices in the far tavern room are the accompaniment to her breath, clearer than the fine drops on the window. Why did he nod?  
_"Do you care?"_

Fabric falls to the ground. Heels click for a moment, and then are silent. There's a rustling...and then bare feet on dead wood. He wants to pull his cloak tighter around him...hide in the fur. Why did he nod?

Again, her hands warm him, pulling his claws-_"They are hands."_-from the bed and to bare skin. Her feet are paler than her hands, he notices. They're small...much smaller than his own. There's freckle on her left ankle. It matches the one on her shoulder.

At the behest of the beast-charmer, he is sat on the mattress. His eye finds the quilt again when deft hands work on the laces and straps of his armor. There the beast still has its wings; the Griffin of Faerghus remains unplucked and proud, cresting the blue quilt in its noble splendor.

She removes his cloak.  
_"Where will we hide?"_

Her hands pull at his gloves, and it's the only thing he helps her take away-if only to check if there are claws or fingers. To see if the red remains. When she pauses to grab at his hands and turn them palm up, tracing the lines like a fortune-teller, he can see fingernails in place of talons and white where there should be red. He pulls away, but with his cloak gone, there is an unnatural-an uncomfortable-lack of weight upon his shoulders that he cannot escape.  
_"It was yours to bear."_

Metal clatters on the ground at his feet, and a pressure against his chest pushes him to lay on the bed. He gazes at the ceiling, watching the growing flames cast stuttering light across the wooden planks above. So too do they grow on his skin, spreading with the touch of promise between his legs.  
_"Not deserved."_

The wind howls against the pane, and in his far-off reflection, there is no beast to be found. Man's eye descries, and the Man-Who-Is-Not-A-Monster quickly turns away.

"Are ya okay?"

He nods. He's not breathing, choking on something ersatz. It escaped his notice that his hands were balled into fists at his sides. She sets about kneading away the stale exterior, tense and unyielding like week-old dough. Focusing on the rain, he drowns out the voices in his head-the ones that call about extinguishing every flame in this room...that seek to smother warmth with hands that should be red. She has small feet. If he were to wrap his hands around her throat, he's certain that it'd be no larger than the handle of his lance. Break it. Break her.

"Is this okay?"

His legs are no longer dangling off the edge of the bed, he's found. There's a pillow beneath his skull. He can't even remember the last time he had such luxury. From where he lies, the heat of the fireplace is more noticeable… It's to his right...above...on either side of him… The oxygen in his lungs boils. He is unused to the fever one seldom experiences in the northern kingdom.

When he feels the unfamiliar weight on his hips, he holds his breath. A log on the fireplace pops. All at once, an engulfing heat devours at him, and his lips part to let out the breathless air he'd been holding in. Head dipping into the pillow, he closes his eye, and he surrenders to the warmth.

He can hear a hearty laugh somewhere in the room, but it's background noise like the tavern bustle, congealing with the pounding rain on the window.

With a shaky sigh, he opens his eye and looks above and traces the outlines of the pulsing light. The flames nearby roar, light glowing and casting their distinct shadows on the wall and ceiling. A woman's figure dances as the darkness against the lit backdrop, pirouetting, rising and falling to the beat of the squeaking mattress and punctuated gasps. Her head falls back, tendrils of hair fading into the shadowed lines of her body. Hips gyrate against an indistinguishable figure beneath, a figure melded into the shadows.

Foreign hands press against his shaking thighs, and the weight on his hips shifts to suffocate him; any voice he could have had is sentenced to silence. He wants to touch back. He wants to feel-feel her breathing against his palms, feel the warmth of her body, feel her as reality intends. His hands tighten in sheets, and he claws at them to fight his primal urges. The heat gathers, his flesh is prickling, and the warmth molds to him like a second layer of skin. It's burning. He feels it most when he stretches out beneath her, skin pulling taut and inviting more of that warmth. Her touch is fire, and his body betrays him by welcoming it.

Every breath he captures draws in her exotic spice, and he finds himself gasping for it. It lights sparks in his lungs, and the heat between his legs grows. He grasps for the pillows beside his head, and as his eye begins to flutter closed, he can see a blur of red past heated daze.

She breathes fire against his throat and draws out a groan he didn't know he had in him. Lips knead at fevered flesh, and he closes his eye tightly to focus on the rain. Cold rain. Freezing rain. The feeling of feathers-her loose tresses-tickles his searing, red skin as she canopies over him, and he shudders. There's a pressure on his palm, and when he feels it wrap around his fingers, he recognizes it as her hand. It guides his own away from the comfort of cotton and presses it against a silky thigh. He wants to grab it, to sink his fingers into that warmth and drink ecstasy from that feeling. For now, it's enough to feel her moving against him-to feel her slipping past his fingers with every thrust. It's enough to feel something tangible.

Words like poison press into his neck and down to his shoulders, promising things he cannot possibly deserve, but they fall on deaf ears. The fire engulfs all.

Hot, and wet, and suffocating, he's burning away under her touch. The ice is melting, and he tenses. Muscles become rigid, and he pulls away his hand to grapple with sheets again. He furrows his brows, breath unsteady and punctuated like crackling embers because that is what she's reducing him to. Everything is getting faster, and when her lips trace his jaw, he tosses his head aside-away from that blaze-and cracks open his eye to glance at shadows.

The dancing woman is hardly distinguishable, melting into him and the darkness below. There's a space in between them when she pulls away, but the space is shallow and all-too-brief. It dissipates with every moan and every gasp and every choked sound he can muster above the sound of burning wood. The heat that is coiling tighter and sharper in him is desperate, desperate. "-can-?" The words on his lips don't sound like his own. What is he even asking?

She nods quickly into his shoulder with a noise he can't quite discern, and another log pops in the inferno.

His hands cocoon themselves in the fabric of the sheets, clawing inside them in desperation as his chest meets hers. A cracked, airy cry barely breaks the din of pounding rain and sputtering wood. His chest meets hers, and for a moment, he can feel her heart pounding against him. A spark ignites for that moment-a match against the strikeboard. For that ephemeral eternity, that fleeting instant, he's swallowed by fire and every icy reserve is reduced to sweating ash.

The log in the fireplace collapses into embers.

When he opens his eye again, the woman's shadow is gone, and the room is considerably darker. Dim orange paints plaster, and things that were once definite are now blurred shapes.

She presses a kiss to his cheek when his eye closes, and he waits to open it again until the brief wetness on his legs is dried and the door is closed with a definitive click. He doesn't hear her redress. He doesn't hear her when she moves to leave. Just a click and silence.

_"__Disconnect."_

Rolling onto his side, he studies the dying fireplace and looks without looking at the pulsing glow of red embers. The sound of rain overpowers that of the memory of fire, and a chill already sits in the room in her absence. He could get up. He could stoke the fire again. There's a pile of firewood at its side. It wouldn't take much to send the fireplace and the room into a fiery blaze. But he doesn't.  
_The cold is too familiar. _

He lays awake, feeling the ice seep back into his bones, and waits for the daylight to swallow the dark of the room. The cold dark remains.

The door opens, and thus the beast leaves, closing it behind him.


	2. Spring

Sight

"Spring"

* * *

The trees, stripped white from winter wind, retain their glossy coat of ice and snow. They lean inward towards each other with needles frozen so stiffly that they whistle in the breeze. Beneath their rigid arms, the ground scattered with browning spruce leaves and weeks old snow is dark and ominous. Vast silence reigns as it has for the winter moons.

But as day peeks through the veil of grey, clouds part under the relentless nature of radiance, and a myriad of light draws life from the stillness.

The world sighs, and the snow begins to melt.

One drop.

Two drops.

Three drops.

They gather on the gangly branch, running down the limb to gather on the rigid offshoots of pine needles.

Four drops.

Five drops.

Six drops.

The branch is getting heavier.

Seven drops.

Eight drops.

Nine drops.

It's bent, nearly meeting the limbs below.

Ten drops.

The coalescence of water finally builds enough to warrant the collapse of the integrity of the needles. Water falls. It gathers on the branches below as it had with the first.

Down…

Down to the earth they seek their return.

Some miss their mark, and to the ground in free

fall they plummet. There the lion awaits them.

Hundreds-maybe thousands-travel toward the ground. Dozens reach it. And one hits its mark. Down to the temple. Across the cheek's plains. Dangle at the jaw's ridge.

Then fall in the mane. Get lost in the fur. Evaporate via body heat.

The lion doesn't mind the water's intrusion; he hardly notices it. It is only coincidence… It is only a water droplet from above on his face running down the side of his muzzle as he releases his grip on the shattered skull in his claws. His prey falls limp to the ground. The red drips profusely from his paw...and his own battered being.

"It doesn't matter."

Staggering back to the tree, his back meets the bark with a solid thud. The weight of his body knocks the water on the bottom branches loose, and more droplets seek to claim domain on his face. He lets them as he slides down to the ground, gasping for breath and looking up to the mass of green and white above. A bead falls from the corner of his eye.

"It's just the snow. It's melting."

His lance lies on the ground at his side-the same crimson color as his tattered fur and kinked armor. He looks at it for a moment and then glances back to the needles, watches them gain weight and then release.

Release…

His brows knit together, lips parted in a grimace as he presses a paw to his side as if to confirm the pain.

"It is real."

Through the cracks in the armor and the gaps in his flesh, the cold seeps in and latches onto the parts of him he can't keep hidden. What heat is left in him flows to the ground left untouched by the light that cannot reach it-the light that cannot reach him. From where he sits, resting against the trunk, he can see that light through the cloud of white mist that sprawls from his paling lips and the tangle of branches reaching for the canopy. The shining arms of daylight embrace and pull at the few remaining icicles stubbornly clinging to the uppermost limbs of the huddling trees.

With a grimace, he shifts to relieve the pressure of a rootwad on the back of his thigh. His body tenses in protest, sharp pain pulsing in the gaping wound just shortly above the knee. He settles with the rootwad.

"You…"

A body, one of many sprawled in the beast's trophy pile, begins to move. Nails latching onto dead needles and frozen mulch, it digs its fingers into the ground and pulls itself across another human's corpse. Raising its head, the person, a man who looks not much older than the beast, screams.

"You monster!"

The lion looks to meet the gaze he's been given.

"You bloody monster!"

The man is crying.

"You murderer!"

With an apathetic stare, the lion reaches for his lance with his free hand. Beneath the other, his ribs are straining, fresh blood coating his flank and running through his trembling claws.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you and bring your head back to her! For the people of Farghus!"

Rising with the help of his lance, the lion staggers over to where the man is lying on the ground. He looks down to wide eyes mad in their fury. Freckles. Brown hair, like his eyes. Pale skin. Missing a leg. The other is bent at an odd angle. Intestines are caught on his dead friend's belt.

"Mark...mark my… Goddess damn...you…" he breathes, glaring up at the lion who appears as unphased as the snow untouched by day. He reaches out a bloody hand, grasping at the equally red greaves in front of his pain-contorted countenance. Using it as leverage, he pulls himself slowly up the body of the lion and takes advantage of the ledges of steel and iron as handholds. "I swear…"

The man falls limp on the lion's fang.

With a muted yawn, the beast watches the man slide off the length of the lance and to the snow beside the bodies piled up. Where vermillion drips from the steel, the snow dissolves enough to form a pool, and the red gathers there. He steps over it. He steps over it and the bodies.

"How many have you killed?"

"Hold your tongues."

From there, he limps forward. One hand grasps the lance, the other presses palms to the trees and leaves a trail of handprints to the treasure trove of massacre.

His breath is heavy, panting as he stumbles over snow drifts and fallen trees. He has to squint to make out the path he plans to cut out for himself, the dark shadow under his sleepless eye deepening as the rest of the color in his face flees in favor of trying to mend the wounds he's choosing to ignore.

"But you deserve the pain."

One drop.

Two drops.

Three drops.

They plummet into the drifts of white. The beast leans against a tree, claws digging into the splitting bark and pricking holes into a black glove.

Four drops.

Five drops.

Six drops.

His breathing is heavier, drawn out into long pants.

Seven drops.

Eight drops.

Nine drops.

He walks on, feet carving lines through the snow. His cloak bears the weight of winter.

So heavy…

Ten drops.

Reaching for another support, his paw meets empty air. The white that is stained red gives way. Greaves lose traction. The beast stumbles and falls

down. Down to seek return to the earth.

"Fall."

The lion is welcomed by gravity, and he does not stir.

Lashes flutter against his cheek as he looks at his red hand clutching his lance.

"Do not let go."

The wet cold permeates the cloth between plates of black armor, and he presses the side of his numbing face against it. He welcomes it, wants to be swallowed by it. When he tries to lift a claw, he finds he lacks the strength. Panic does not set in.

"You cannot die here."

"You were supposed to avenge us."

Through a pant, he gasps an apology, but the words are swallowed by the snow that tumbles between parted lips. Ice forms on the corner of his good eye. Beneath an eyepatch, water flows freely, only freezing when it gathers against his temple.

"Get up."

"Can't."

"Get up."

"I can't."

"GET UP!"

His hand slips away from the lance, and the winds of Farghus weep and moan.

\

\\\

\\\\\

* * *

Faint singing… Where has he heard it before? That song?

Something warm presses against his chest, against his ribs. His flank. There's a quiet crackling off to his right, like a small fire burning away the final remnants of a white log. He tries to open his eye, tries to see the source of that song, but when he finds he cannot, he tosses his head in frustration.

A gentle hand touches his forehead, stilling the beast, and swipes away the hairs that stick to his sweating forehead.

Hot...so very hot. And so much pain.

The numb needles of cold are more preferable than this seering sensation burning through his flank. Every breath is agony.

The song pauses only long enough for someone to 'shush' him, something-perhaps the back of that hand-strokes at the side of his face. This someone restarts it from the beginning, and the beast turns his head away, away to the fire, and sighs.

* * *

"O ba ba mo leanabh."

When he finally opens his eye, he's looking at a warm hearth. He feels smaller. Two pale arms draped in red gown encircle him and press him against a round bosom. The world rocks back and forth.

"Ba mo leanabh, ba."

With a yawn, his small hands rest under his cheek, and when he blinks, slow and tired, he feels ghostly lashes on both cheeks. The lines of the room are blurry. There's a bed on the far side. The hearth is on the adjacent wall in the center. There are knick-knacks on the mantle like wooden ships and toys he'd thrown and couldn't reach to put away.

"O ba ba mo leanabh."

All these things he can see. But when he looks to Her face, he cannot gaze upon it. His vision darkens, as if a thin blanket is draped over his head. He tries to imagine the blonde woman he saw growing up in the hallways and receiving rooms, always surrounded by noble, old gentleman, awkwardly placed flowers, and a golden frame that affirms Her existence in his life as a fairytale-of ancient history, nearly forgotten, and painted with surreal colors and words. But he does not doubt she was beautiful.

"Nì mo leanabhs' an ba ba."

She touches a hand to his forehead and brushes away the pale bangs sticking to his skin. For a moment she pauses in her singing to press a kiss between his brows, and although he can't see the rest of her face, he can see her lips curved in a gentle smile. When she continues to sing, he closes his eyes and allows his head to fall back against her breast.

With every phrase, Her chest rises, and in time, it falls. A hand cradles the back of his head, and another rubs his back. The chair continues to rock back and forth and back and forth and...even when he opens his eyes and she's no longer there.

No matter how hard she tried, his stepmother never sang this song the same way.

* * *

Something tights wraps around him, pressure against wounds old and new. It's hard to breathe. He tries to protest, tries to open his mouth, but only a low whimper speaks for him. His eye cracks open, and he watches the blur of hands sliding from behind him to his front, passing something white between them. They are gentle hands-calloused hands. They belong to that someone's voice. He closes his eye when they wander to his legs.

* * *

"Ged tha mi gun chaoraich agam,"

A familiar ache between his thighs, the product of too many hours spent on the road, burns as he shifts in his saddle and reminds him that he's no longer a child. Arms tired, he pulls his left rein away, over the withers, and rests it atop his mount's left shoulder. A finger dips in between the split leather, and he rests his now free hand on his thigh to revel in the relief in his elbow.

The warmth in his face fades under the familiar chill of Farghus at the end of 'summer.' He looks up, watches an eagle soaring far above with wings unburdened by the cold drafts and heavy, grey clouds hanging low in the sky. Unreachable. Untouchable. It flies to the horizon warmed by an unseen sun, flies to mountains and the tree and to the ruins of the tower in the distance. He quickly glances away, and anticipatory dread settles in his stomach like soured milk.

Where his eyes land is where they stick, entranced by the woman riding silently at his side. She doesn't notice his stare. He watches her raise her hand to pull entrapped hair from her collar and slide it over her shoulder before resting that hand against her thigh and beside the ornate sword dangling off her hip. So many people have died at the end of that blade. They both ride onward.

"All I said was: 'You look divine as always.' How was I supposed to know that nun had taken a vow of chastity? Though it doesn't change how beautiful she is to look at… And since when does that entitle you to throw your shoe at someone; especially someone of my charm and status? Maybe I just wanted to compliment her a bit. Don't you girls like that kind of thing?"

There's a gasp of exasperation from the back of the unit and subsequent, light-hearted laughter, successfully interrupting the peaceful silence his mind has found during their march. Sylvain has always had a way of interrupting things.

"Ugh! Sylvain! You are the worst! Why do I have a feeling I'll have another mess to clean up when we get back to the academy?"

That laughter dies down into a quiet chuckle, and he doesn't have to look back to know that there's a grin plastered on the redhead's face. "Oh relax, Ingrid. It's nothing new. Besides, working with you has been a blast, wouldn't you agree? I'd hate for what we have together to end."

"What we have together?!" Her screech is loud enough to alert people countries away. "Do you mean to tell me you have no intention of ever acting respectably? Honestly! The gall!"

"She has a point you know…" A third voice-he recognizes it as Felix's-butts in to the conversation, dry and pointed. The downward, pursed twist of lips that voice comes from draws the annoyed displeasure in veritable vats of titular vexation.

"Eh, who knows? Maybe someday I'll shape up."

Ingrid's sharp burst of laughter makes the ears of every horse in the unit swivel back. "When you were eight, you even hit on my granny! That was ten years ago!"

"Hey! Pstch-stch-pp!" His stutter comes out in lipsy hisses as if his mouth can't get around vowels and his tongue is stuck between his teeth. The sound finally causes the Not-Yet-A-Beast to look back, watching the redhead secure his reins over the pommel and behind the horn to free his hands and arms for the overdramatic flailing he ennacts when he finally manages to find words. "We agreed not to talk about that!"

"'s caoraich uil' aig càch,"

"They seem lively today, all things considering…" The woman's-the professor's-observation draws him back to the front. She doesn't glance back, focused on where they're headed; he doesn't follow her gaze.

"Yes," he says. "It would seem so."

"I'm glad he's doing all right. Though I can't help but wonder…" Her brows furrow, green eyes narrowed on the road ahead. She opens her mouth again, but whatever she was going to say dies on the tip of her tongue, and she shakes her head.

The bickering in the back continues, but his attention rests on the professor. He commits her face to memory: the sharp angles of her cheeks, her dark hair pinned away by silver clasps, the red that burns her face in the cold and stands as the only indication of her comfort, the large, wide eyes that reflect all the emotions she never expresses otherwise... The professor is an enigma.

"The professor was an enigma."

"Wonder what?"

She shakes her head again, and the blank expression she typically wears erects the wall he can never seem to find a gate through.

"ged tha mi gun chaoraich agam,"

Up ahead, Ashe is speaking quietly with Dedue about the greenhouse at the academy. Apparently, the Duscan seeds weren't taking well to the new fertilizer and would have to be moved. Mercedes and Annette are laughing somewhere off to his left, though he can't hear their conversation over the bickering of the three behind him. To his right, the professor-their teacher not much older than Sylvain, the oldest in their class-listens to, or maybe ignores, the cacophony of teenagers choosing to ignore the travails of the world for an imagined moment. Eight classmates on a normal class trip. Teenagers from a military academy sent to deal with routine bandits. A child sent with his friends to kill his brother.

He looks back to the redhead, but when he does, all he can see is the boy-now barely a man-standing over the body-the demon-of his childhood. That nonchalant grin is still there, practiced into perfection, and it stays there even when the gloss glazes his brown eyes and the voice chokes on its own cheer. "I'm fi-ne."

"-STUPID WOMANIZER!" Ingrid's cry breaks the 'peace' again. Something thrown breaks the spell, and when he blinks, a horse screams and a streak of black darts across his vision with a string of foul-mouthed words that leaves a trail of profanity into the brush to the far left past the mage unit.

He looks to the two figures remaining. Sylvain. Ingrid. Where is-?

"FELIX!"

"Dèan a leanabh's an ba ba."

When they finally catch up to the horse pacing beside the creek, there sits the dark-haired swordsman-the unwaveringly terse, bluntly-spoken heir of a dukedom-glowering at his classmates through wet bangs. Water pours out of the crevices of his leather armor, drops rolling from hair that has fallen out of its bun and now sticks to his head like a wet leaf. The white, dress-shirt collar of their school uniform peaks out from beneath his breastplate, crumpled and soaked through. It's the most unkempt he's ever been. The way he glares at his classmates, the way he almost hisses when Sylvain finally catches up and doubles over laughing-he looks like an angry, soaked cat. He holds his sword, engraved with the crest of Fraldarius, out of the water. It is the only thing he tried to save when he fell into the creek.

Hazel eyes, bordering on amber, flash with anger. It's the only emotion Felix has expressed freely since that day. The To-Be-Beast laughs anyway.

* * *

"O ba ba mo leanabh,"

Even in this daze he can feel gentle hands run down his bare arm and leave him completely.

"Ba mo leanabh, ba."

The song continues, but the touch is gone. Words are distant, travelling over far space to reach him.

"O ba ba mo leanabh,"

Although the sensation of touch is missing, the nauseating heat remains. Fire now almost completely silent, it becomes apparent that the heat is not external.

"Nì mo leanabh's an ba ba."

It eats at him. Angry.

"Vengeance. We want vengeance."

* * *

"Eudail mhòir a shlauigh an dòmhain,"

Sylvain, younger and wet and bruised, stares off into the distance as Child-Beast watches. The redhead's back is to the well, and brown water and blood rolls down his face with the guidance of the light rain. There's an emptiness in his gaze. When Child-Beast touches him, he does not react. He doesn't seem to see the blonde kneeling beside him, doesn't seem to hear the little girl-Ingrid-trying to tell Child-Beast to get help, doesn't seem to process the two young men tumbling on the grass in front of them.

What is he supposed to do? Felix stands beside Sylvain in the same trance, tears sticking to cheeks starting to lose the roundness of youth.

"You fool! What were you thinking?!" Child-Beast watches Glenn, fifteen, newly knighted, and bare fists bloodied. His black hair sticks to his sweating face, hazel eyes dilated. Panting, he raises a shaking hand to press a thumb to one nostril and blow blood out the other. At his feet is an older man, crimson hair and brown eyes like Sylvain. The man, Miklan, scrunches up his red and black face, his obscenely large nose smashed in to a more tolerable size.

"What do you care? Should have left him down there."

"He's your brother!" Glenn takes him by the collar, raises him off the ground, and plants his fist back in the man's face. Once. Twice. A few times more. Miklan falls from the force of the final blow and rolls onto his side, clutching his face. "How could you?! He could have died! Your brother!"

"Good riddance." The comment earns him a boot to the ribs, and an audible crack produces a litany of groans and swears.

Turning away from the rotting soul writhing in the dirt, Glenn turns to Sylvain and stretches his split lips into a smile. The sun peeks behind the frowning clouds, stirred by the late season winds, even as the rain falls down. Its upper rim, pale and golden, bestows its cheer on the silver clasp holding a sword to the newly-appointed knight's belt. He stares at it, transfixed by the ornate handle crowned with the crest of Fraldarius, the northern dukedom. Standing there, in front of them, with his long hair askew, bruised, battered, bloody, and nonetheless smiling, he is every definition of a true knight. Glenn's hand finds its place on Sylvain's shoulder. They're not that far apart in age, but Glenn has always seemed older. Wiser. Braver. "You all right?"

Sylvain wipes his face with his sleeve. His other hand, blackened and swollen, is cradled against his chest. He smiles back."Yeah. I'm fine."

I'm fine, he says.

I'm fi-ne, he says when he's standing over Miklan's body, looking at the man-beast who stands nearby with Miklan's blood rolling off his lance and puts a well-meaning, red hand on his shoulder. He leaves a crimson print on his armor that he never washes off.

"But you're not Glenn."

Sylvain smiles anyway.

* * *

He watches bare, pale feet quickly skirt the side of the bed to the fireplace.

* * *

I'm fine, says Felix. He says it as he turns away from the grave and the man-beast grabs his sleeve.

"Dhòirt iad d'fhuil an dé."

It's a private affair. The rain hadn't cleared up enough to allow much travel, and Fraldarius territory is as far north and as harsh as any Farghus territory can be. His father gives a proud speech commemorating his sacrifice. Rain falls. His father's tears do not. Glenn's fiancé, Ingrid, listens to every word his father says in rapture with glazed eyes. Medals and over-zealous praise adorn a closed, pine box seven-feet-underground.

Felix, who had tragically wailed and shut himself in days after hearing of Glenn's death, doesn't even look up when he says that he's fine. He just lets the water drip from his hair, stares with open hatred at the Duke when he gives his speech, and then walks away-alone-with his brother's sword. "I hope you were worth it."

"I hope you are worth it."

* * *

The song becomes shaky, uncertain, as something heavy drags across the floor. Thin arms cloaked in thick dress sleeves visibly shake and struggle with dragging the object toward the fireplace. The heat that burns within becomes unbearable, even as his fingertips and feet are pricked with frozen pain.

* * *

"'S chuir iad do cheann air stob daraich,"

Burning bodies smell like burning bodies. There is no other way to describe it. There are parts of a body that one never cooks, regardless of the animal. It is a scent one never forgets. He remembers it well. Remembers clutching at his father's corpse while Glenn grabs him by the back of the neck and tries to pry him off. Remembers chanting "don't leave him" through tears and snot, screaming as if he were the one dying. Remembers seeing the blood splattered on Glenn's torso but too enraptured by his panic to process it.

"DIMITRI!"

* * *

Something crackles nearby, popping his ears, and he opens his eye briefly to see short, skinny figure crouched on the ground illuminated by the sudden and violent flash of light.

* * *

An explosion of magic and flame shakes the earth, and the force is enough to send the both of them reeling backward, a black, charred hand ripped from the ashen corpse. Dimitri screams, letting go of the severed hand as Glenn wraps his arms beneath the blonde's and drags him across the ground several feet before stumbling and losing his grip. Glenn rights himself, taking the younger's arm and pulling him to his feet. "We have to go, your highness! We can't stay here!"

Dimitri looks up at the heir of the duke, blue eyes wide in terror and tears cutting through patches of soot splattered on his face like dried paint. Glenn looks as he did that day months ago, his face bloodied, soot blending in with the bruises. The knight is panting with uneven breath, but he's focused and aware and brave and everything Dimitri isn't.

"You will never be like him."

"We can make it if we head straight for the border," he assesses, stopping to swallow dry air and ash. "Come on. Can you stand on your own?"

Nodding weakly, he glances back at his father's corpse and wonders if his stepmother has met the same fate. Will he too end up like-?

"Dimitri! Look at me!" A hand grabs the young boy's face, turning his attention back to the knight who takes the second sword from his belt and shoves the sheathed blade into the unarmored chest. "Don't look back. If you look back, you will die. I'm going to get you out of here. I need you to run. I need you to fight. They're dead, Dimitri. Nothing you do is going to change that. But you can live. So I need you to do that for me. Do you understand me? Do you understand, Dimitri? You're going to make it."

"You shouldn't have."

Glenn grabs the back of his head to bring their foreheads together, effectively blocking his view of the charred bodies and flames surrounding them. And Dimitri nods, albeit numbly.

Unsheathing his sword, Glenn lets go and starts east. The brave knight charges into the flames of sin with that same determined look on his face. Arrows fly. Soldiers fall left and right. When Dimitri watches his sword slice through a man's face and stares in horror, when he stops to watch a man clutching his face and scream, Glenn is there with his own blade to silence and still and support.

"We're almost there. Don't stop for anything. You hear me?! Go!"

He runs. He runs until he realizes that his feet are the only feet he hears. He stops. He turns back to look. For a moment, the professor is there, slicing through enemies like she does-the angel of death unwavering. He blinks. Glenn is on the ground.

Their eyes meet, and Dimitri raises his sword as if he's about to charge into the unit of mages beyond where Glenn lies.

"But you weren't-aren't-that brave."

He watches him convulse...watches his body contort in on itself like a worm run through...watches it lurch from the ground as he foams at the mouth and shrieks like a nightingale skinned.

* * *

New fire ignites. The smell of wet wood burning is strong.

* * *

The smell of burning bodies is fresh again… When the ashes drift downwind to his screaming lips, the taste is even more repugnant. The mages don't see him until that scream...don't meet his gaze until Glenn is not Glenn and the body is not a body. They don't see the shaking, terrified boy until his sword looks like a flag in the wind.

Dimitri runs. He runs until he finds the cover of trees untouched. Runs until he can't really smell the ash and the taste in his mouth is not ash. He vomits on the sword Glenn gave him.

* * *

He awakens briefly to see the figure in the room pull a quilt from the end of the bed and drape it over him. A freckled shoulder hovers in his vision for a moment, stills, and the song stops long enough for the figure to ask a question. But he closes his eyes before he can process what they say. The heat begins to relent.

* * *

"Tacan beag bho do chré."

The professor handled dead bodies better than he did. She cut down entire companies with that same, empty expression on her face. The cries of gutted civilians, of those stupid (or brave) enough to stand against the church (the dominant power over Farghus and proprieter of its military academy), never seemed to reach her ears. She stands over the body of a child, heel digging into a forearm, and flicks the blood off her sword. When she looks at him, he can only envy her apathy.

"Because you delight in the kill."

"I don't."

How could she kill so many people with that face? Does she think about theirs?

"Do you want to be a monster?"

"I don't."

Even covered in blood, even with that vacant expression, she looks beautiful with her hair down.

"What did she look like after she fell?"

When he shakes his head and looks at his feet, a mask lies there...red and white like a theatre prop. When he gazes at the face its fallen from, there stands his step-sister, once beloved and cherished, over the bodies of Glenn, his father, Miklan, her own mother, and every dead soldier in Farghus...burning...screaming. He is laughing.

"Is this some kind of twisted joke?" He sways from side to side as a puppet without strings, and when he feels the professor's hand stop him, he casts it aside. Nothing-no one-will stop him from attaining the dead's vengeance. The lance in his hands is growing hotter, and it burns his hands through his gloves. He looks at them. The leather is turning to fur.

His beloved step-sister, that traitor, stands there staring at him. No sweet words. No defense. He will take those eyes and carve them out with his own fingers...fingers he can feel shaping into claws.

"I've been looking for you…" He stops just shy of the soldiers between the two of them, eyes wide with psychotic glee. Pointing his lance, he glances down the handle and the blade with a grin. "I will take that head from your shoulders, and HANG IT FROM THE GATES OF ENBARR!"

And he charges into the enemy. Just like Glenn. Just like the professor. But his face is not one of apathy. He laughs as he slices through them like bread, enjoys the sound of bones cracking when he crushes through helmet and skull with his bare hands and bashes them into concrete. Blood splatters on his face, and he revels in it.

"I thought you didn't want this."

"I don't. I didn't. I-"

He throws his weapon like a javelin, and this time, he imagines he succeeds. The lance skewering his step-sister...her face contorted in perpetual terror as crimson runs down the length of the handle. He takes it...stabs her again and again and againandagainandagain-

* * *

"O ba ba mo leanabh,"

There's a weight in the bed nearby, pulling him toward it like gravity. He grumbles something, but even he is unsure what it was meant to be.

"Ba mo leanabh, ba."

A hand embraces his own, thumb running in circles over his palm. When he opens his eyes, he spies the woman sitting there. Half the world is blurry, no longer darkened. He dares to look higher.

"O ba ba mo leanabh,"

Her pale lips are curved into a smile as she sings. The rest of her face is blurry, but that much he can see.

"Nì mo leanabh's an ba ba."

That much he can remember.

* * *

"Dhìrich mi bheinn mhòr gun anal."

He rests his back against a tree, sighing as he looks up at the tops of the trees and tries to commit to memory the sight of trees that are not pines heavy-laden with snow. Warmth floods his face when the sun peeks around broad leaves.

Reluctantly, Dimitri turns his head to the sound of rushing water and steps off a mossy rock to follow the path of the ravine's river. She must have fallen or washed up somewhere around here…

Using his lance to guide his descent down a rocky outcropping, he stops to look at the dead vines stretching from bark and over stone. He imagines it's her hair...pictures the red blossoming around her head like a crown as she lies there, staring at him with that same blank expression.

Is that her secret? Does one have to be already dead to kill without regrets?

Gazing upward, he follows the cliffside to where it meets the sky. For a moment, he's standing at the top, hand outstretched as he tries to warn her of the archer...tries to grab her as her limbs flail for something-anything-and her hair flies upward around her head and free of the silver clasps at her temples.

She screams.

The first and last emotion he sees in her is fear. And even then, she is beautiful.

* * *

Hands pull his head upward, and something soft takes their place. Through his lashes, he sees the crimson tresses that dangle over his face and tickles his skin. He raises a hand to try and brush it away.

* * *

"Dhìrich augus thearn."

He's lying in bed when he finally awakens, light filtering in from the window in his room. Blue, Farghus colors, fully envelops his vision. From navy quilts, royal blue walls, ornate, cerulean chinaware set out for morning tea… Everything is blue. He draws a hand down his face when he finally convinces his body to sit up, and reaches for the robe he expects to be resting at his bedside.

It isn't there.

The tea hasn't been made.

Breakfast is not set out.

The maids have not been in.

It is late in the day.

"Your highness." Someone knocks at the door. It is curt. Short. Sharp. "Please come out. Slowly. Come out with honor. We have questions for you regarding the death of King Regent Rufus von Blaiddyd. If you comply, we will treat you as expected for someone of your station. Failure to comply will result in unnecessary force."

"Did you kill him?"

"No."

Dimitri grabs the decorative lance from the wall.

* * *

The burning logs in the fireplace have cooled, steadying with the temperature within. He watches a hand press something soft and wet against his forehead. The chill is welcome even as water gathers in the gold locks in front of his ears.

He reaches upward, and his fingers curl gently around the singing woman's wrist and hold her hand there. She doesn't retreat.

* * *

"Chuirinn falt mo chinn fo d'chasan,"

Reaching out through the bars of the door, he screams as Dedue locks the bolts. The screaming of the prison guards, loyal to that traitorous Usurper, is getting louder. He can see their shadows elongating down the hall. The light of day behind him wraps his head in a golden glow, standing in sharp contrast to the dark-skinned Duscan man who had pledged his life and loyalty to him not long after Glenn's death.

"Your highness, you must go now. They will kill you if they find you. Duke Fraldarius or Margrave Gautier will surely see you protected in the north. Their loyalty is assured."

"These are my people, Dedue! And you are my friend! I cannot abandon you. I cannot abandon them."

"But you did."

"You must! For the good of Farghus. Everything rests on your shoulders now." He reaches through the bars, and the two men interlock hands in a death grip. Dedue's firm jaw squares, and he rests his head against the bars to stare at the lord with his intense gaze. Green meets blue. "It has been a privilege to serve you. You will make a fine king. I have no regrets."

"Dedue!" He wants to break down the door then and there. Wants to drag Dedue with him. Somehow. Somehow they can both escape. They'll run to Felix and his father… They'll run to Sylvain and his father. Goddess preserve them, they'll even run all the way to Ingrid and her father.

"Go now. While there is still time. I will hold them off. Good luck, Dimitri." It's the only time he's ever spoken his name.

"Dammit!" he hisses between clenched teeth. When Dedue lets go of his hand, the blonde punches the stone wall nearby and ignores the cracks of protest that spiderweb down his hand from the impact.

"You didn't deserve to be saved."

* * *

The wrist in his hand begins to slide away, and he holds on tighter. Running up her arm, to her freckled shoulder, and then to her face, he finally meets a moss-green gaze. Her cheeks are dusted with the same freckles on her shoulder, red with warmth and dimpled with a smile as she sings. Face round and soft, her brows, untrimmed but still defined, rise when it sinks in that he's looking at her-truly looking.

Her smile widens, but she doesn't stop singing.

* * *

"Agus craicionn mo dhà làimh."

He rests his head on a pale, withered arm and holds onto a warm hand. That same voice from before, the one only heard in dreams, joins his. He's not much of a singer, but the words come by heart, he mutters them into skin. A hand threads through his hair, brushing through it slowly.

"O ba ba mo leanabh,"

His eyes grow heavy. The weight at the end of the bed disappears, and its owner ventures toward him to settle in the chair at the bedside. There's a sadness hanging in the air, but he doesn't know what it is. Why it is.

"Ba mo leanabh, ba."

The presence at the bedside leans over, and the large hand the lays atop the one on his head is familiar. He knows it as Father. The song reaches Father, and his voice carries softly over Mother.

"O ba ba mo leanabh,"

He fights the sleep that tugs at his eyes. The song is quieter, but he keeps singing. Keeps singing. Keeps singing.

"Nì mo leanabh's an ba ba."

He's the only one left singing. The room is cold. He reaches for the hand that no longer strokes his head, the one that his father no longer holds, and pulls it to his face to kiss it when he finishes the song. Dimitri tells Mother he loves her.

Dimitri looks up when he hears his father's soft sobs, watches the tall man, an immovable mountain, shrink in his chair with his face in his hands. Dimitri does not understand. He does not understand why Father cries. He does not understand why no one else will sing the song. He does not understand why his mother looks at him with blank, green eyes and doesn't say "I love you" back.

He does not understand why he starts crying too.

* * *

\ \ \ \

\ \ \ \ \

\ \ \ \ \ \

A door opens in the distance, thudding softly against a wall as if a ghost had turned the handle and conjured a breeze to push it open. But what use do ghosts have for doors? He can feel a presence near the door, and he listens as the ghost tinkers with something in the hallway and then walks into the room. It approaches his bedside to the left, sets something down on a wooden surface there, and then retreats back across the room. The door closes.

He waits for several moments, eye closed, and listens for footsteps in the hallway. The ghost is silent. There are no footsteps to be heard, but he can feel its presence lingering in the room. Waiting for something. Watching.

"We're always with you."

"Shut up," he grumbles, rolling onto his side and throwing an arm over his head. The sheets are tangled between his legs, one covered and the other exposed up to the small of his back to the chilly air.

There's a giggle, and the ghost steps in front of him. "Well, gaed mornin' tae'ya tae."

Reluctantly, the beast opens his eye to squint at an apron within arms length. Two calloused hands are clasped together in front of it. He sighs through his nose, and he moves the arm over his head to hide his face behind his bicep. If he can't see her, he can at least pretend a little longer that she's a ghost.

"Now, ya can't stay in bed a' day." Much to his chagrin, a foot taps impatiently at his bedside. He rolls over on his other side, back to the ghost, other arm sliding over his face. And the ghost must not have liked it very much because it follows him, walking around the bed to stand in front of him again and clap its hands twice like a head-maid finishing her daily reading of the day's tasks to the sculleries. "Com'on, 'andsome. Rise n' shine~"

"Do not patronize me, woman."

"Aww, 'urt feelin's, 'andsome?" That cursed giggle is back again. "If I don' ge' ya up now, ya'll be sleepin' till the Goddess be right on this vaery 'arth." Pausing a moment, the ghost's eyes burn holes into him as it waits for him to do something. Anything. "Com'on, now~ Or I'll strike yur bare arse."

The beast growls, but it doesn't move. Ghosts do not provide substantial sustenance-nothing to pounce on and devour.

"This be ya're last warnin~"

He hears something like strings of fabric being pulled apart, and something thin and light tickles over the back of his exposed thigh. Burying his head farther into the pillow and pointlessly squirming in some vain attempt to suck his leg back under the linens, he grumbles something unintelligible and raises a foot to rebelliously strike the mattress.

SMACK! 

Gone are the final dredges of sleep and comfort. Gone is the haze of blissful unawares. In its place is a seething lion awoken from its slumber, and the beast jolts upward with a wide eye and a hand over his smarting ass. It takes only a moment to assess the situation, to see the damnable woman standing at the foot of his bed and holding an apron twisted into a makeshift whip like children do with towels. His vision rests on her hands, and his tongue lies useless in his mouth.

"I told'ya. I'll strike ya 'gain if ya be so inclined tae sleep the day'way."

He stares at her for a moment, watching her wring the apron a little tighter, and then glances away. Expression hardening, he pulls the sheets up to his chest and lays back down to stare at the platter of a meager offering of breakfast: barley bread, gruel, and a pint of what is probably watered down ale. "I'm awake…"

"Oh are ya? Looks tae me ya're layin' thar like a righ' arse, ya're."

The beast grumbles something, reverberating in his throat like something between a growl and a sigh. Through a veil of pale fringe, he becomes increasingly aware of the blurry, right side of the world and reaches up to touch the scarred tissue over his milk-white eye. Fingertips run along the tattered flesh that never pieced together, rubs what feels like an old, dried wrinkle.

"You'll never reach the age of wrinkles."

"Where is it?"

"Hmmm? What? Whar's what?"

"She took it. She knows who you are. She's already told them."

"My patch."

"Kill her. Kill her before she can kill you."

"Ah, ya're eyepatch? By yur breakfast, glaikit. An' do eat it 'fore it gets cold, won' ya? Yur breeks are on th'end of yur bed. 'll le'ya get dressed. Dinnae make me come back 'n strike ya 'gain." He can see the hand of the woman shaking a finger at him in the blur. He knows it's closer than it looks and doesn't move until he sees a red blob move out of his peripheral and hears the door open and close with a click of finality.

At last...

"She's going to bring them here the enemy they'll kill you while you're dressing where is the lance why are you here you should be dead they'll take you back to Fhirdiad and mount your head on a spear the food is probably poisoned you shouldn't eat you don't deserve to live or eat or breathe or get up"

The beast rises, glancing around the room. Fireplace to the right. Door a little beyond. Long table against the farside of the wall littered with clean bandages, a wash basin, and his belt. End table with breakfast on the left. A window with dark blue curtains pulled to but not completely closed, a sliver of light squeezing through the crack between edges of thick, unwavering fabric. The walls are a bare grey with faded etchings of the Farghus Griffin-the beast always mounted by a knight and his lance, always charging into an unseen battle.

Swinging his legs out from under the sheets, he sits upright and looks down to where there should be a new scar over his knee. Fingers run along his ribcage to search for the same thing, but he finds only the wrinkles of past battles.

"She has an affinity for magic. She's a spy."

"You need to kill her now."

Rising quickly from bed, he grabs the black eyepatch from the end table and ties it behind his head in a hurried knot as he strides toward the foot of the mattress. There, somewhat unfolded and covered by sheets askew, are a pair of black breeches. The knee is sewn back together. He checks the pockets for knives or spell sigils and finds them empty.

"That doesn't mean there aren't other traps in here. You aren't searching hard enough."

Slipping them on, he grabs his belt from the table and runs it through the loops. The latch proves difficult. Claws were not made for belt buckles. Someone taps on the window. When he snaps around, bristling and teeth bared, he sees the bare arm of a tree waving in the wind outside, fingers rap, rap, rapping on the glass.

It takes a moment for the beast to settle. When he does, he finishes with his belt and does one more glance-over of the room. His armor and lance are missing. The knife on his belt is gone. The belt pouch is empty. There is no sign of his boots.

"She's the enemy. She wouldn't leave weapons lying around."

Footsteps in the hallway near the door, and he tenses.

The door opens inward, he assesses. So he waits against the wall, listens as the iron handle jiggles and the hinges squeak upon the wooden door's opening.

And he grabs her by the throat. Any scream she would have made is replaced by a sickening gurgle as her oxygen is cut off and any left in her body is lost upon her being tossed to the ground like a child's plaything.

"Where are my belongings, you Imperial cur?!"

She stares at him silently, and he does his best not to look at her face. Instead, he stares at the purpling flesh beneath his hands. He feels the pulse racing under his thumb and readjusts his grip on her left hand, his knee securing the other. As if to test his strength, she squirms slightly, pulling at her wrist gently, and then she relaxes without a word.

"ANSWER ME!"

"Kill her. You're wasting time."

Still, she says nothing. He knows she's not dead. He can feel it under his touch. But it would be so easy to make it so. So easy to squeeze and snap her neck like an eggshell.

"I will kill you…" he hisses it like venom, spitting with every word. "What did you tell them?"

Silence. Her breath is coming out in short gasps, and he fights the urge to see whether or not her cheeks are as purple as her throat.

"Don't look at her face."

"If you won't answer me then-"

He catches the smile in the very edges of his vision. It draws him upward, and what meets him stills his touch and relaxes his grip. Perhaps the tears were ones of pain...or fear...or lack of air. But what he sees is none of those things. She smiles, shakily at best, and cries for him tears of pity. Under the laxness of his touch, she manages to slide her wrist free from his grasp and reaches up to touch his own, wrapping her fingers around them and holds his paw-no, his hand-there.

Recoiling, he lets go and stumbles away from her, back against the door with a wide eye.

"It's a trick. She'll kill y-"

He shakes his head, panting now as he slides down the door and holds his head in his hands.

On the ground, the woman gasps for air, coughing as she lays on her side and holds her hands to her chest. He doesn't watch her writhe on the ground. His eye remains on his bare feet. Why did he let go? He should kill her. Right now. It's sorcery. A trick. She knows who he is. She must. Why else would she-?

"Glenn?" Her voice is soft, raspy-understandable-but does not lack its unique trill.

Upon hearing that name, he glances up, and he stares at those pitying eyes.

"She's just using that name to throw you off. She knows who you really are."

"It's a' ri-" She coughs into the floorboards, body hunched over and shaking. When she catches her breath, she peers at him through a mess of red hair and smiles the best she can manage. "'m fine…"

I'm fine, she says. I'm fine, she says as she finally manages to crawl toward him and put a hand to his cheek. I'm fine, she says when she's kneeling there, red faced and bruised. She smiles in spite of his actions.

One moment.

Two moments.

Three moments.

Something snaps under the weight of her unwavering gaze.

"I am...sorry," he manages. Slowly, he tilts his head away from her hand and stares at the long table against the wall. When he remembers how to let go of the breath he's been holding, he stands and blindly reaches out a hand. The one that takes it is not as hot as he remembers. It isn't suffocating.

"But you still don't deserve it."

"It's a' righ'," she says. She lets go of his hand the moment he hears her heels click against the floorboards. Hands pat an apron-one that he will always associate her whipping him with-as if to smooth it out, and her raspy voice breaks the quiet of the room. "Would'ya like tae try breakfast 'gain?"

"No."

He nods and watches his feet walk back toward the bed, settling on the side where he sits and blindly grabs for the bread. It tastes like nothing. Eating it in silence, he listens to the shuffling of the woman in the room. She walks to sit beside him without a word. Neither of them speak until he's finished the bread and started the ale.

"Issit good?"

He nods, even though he can't taste it.

She shifts next to him, and he can hear her swallow. "Good."

The weight of her eyes on him makes him want to squirm. Instead, he reaches for the bowl of gruel and begins to eat that as well. "If you have something to say," he says between bites, "speak."

"Nunna. Jus' 'appy ya're eatin' 'n nae tryna kill me." Although he tenses at first at those words, there's a sarcastic, dry humor to them that makes him pause. "Ya soldier men are a' tha same. Jus' need a good wummin to straight'n ya out, is all."

A skeptical eye drifts over to the woman's hands wringing in her apron. As light as she's trying to be, she's visibly shaken. He does not know what he's supposed to do. He tries to fish for what his friends would have done… Felix had never been comforting. Ingrid almost always lectured before she came anywhere close to the realm of comfort. Neither of those options seem correct, and so he resorts to his last option: Sylvain, who always asked more questions than he answered. "I suppose if I am here with you, I must be in Conand. I do not recall crossing in Gautier territory. How did I come to be here?"

"Ah. Tha'." She falls quiet for a few moments, still wringing her hands, and smacks her lips twice in thought before continuing. "A nice 'nough merchan' found'ya bleedin' in tha snow on tha border. Didnae know whar' ya were from. We was closes', so 'e brough' ya this ways. Asked who woul' take'ya. Nun'un volunteered, so I did. Lucky we 'ave a bishop; real nice one, 'e is. Sent for 'im 'n patched ya up best we could."

"So, it was a bishop."

"Can you use magic?"

"Me? Know magic? Sorry. Cannae 'fford tha kinna learnin'. 'M justa inn wench."

He stirs the last of his gruel with his wooden spoon, watching it roll over on itself like applesauce… He can't remember the last time he had applesauce.

"'N wha' were ya doin' a' tha way out thar'? Ya almos' crossed o'er to Sreng. No' a nice place."

"No, but the Empire can't reach there. It was a wise decision."

He glances over at her, staring at her shoulder with lips pursed and a deadpan expression plastered to his face like the cheap wallpaper to the room.

"What cannae say? Ya 'ave me curious."

"It's not your concern," he bites out, looking away as he puts the bowl back down on the end table. "Where are my belongings?"

"Tha' eager tae go? Sorry. ' feart y'armor were in bad shape. 's at the fearrier down the ways. We go' nae blacksmith, bu' 'e's good wit' steel; promise. Wouldnae give such fancy armor tae someone who dunnae know wha' they doin'." She stands from the bed and walks toward the table on the far wall. "Bu', 'm feart ya're gonna 'ave to stay a while longer, 'andsome. 'sides, ya've been sick a whiles now. Wouldnae dae tae be won'rin 'round in ya breeks 'n gettin' sick 'gain."

"I have something I have to do."

"The dead will have their vengeance."

"'n wha' woul' tha' be?"

He shakes his head and turns a shoulder to her. "That is none of your concern."

"Fine then. Keep ya secrets."

That familiar quiet hangs in the air again, and he can feel her watching him from across the room. The longer the seconds pass by, the heavier her gaze becomes, the more he gives in. Slowly, he tilts his head...just to catch a glimpse of her is enough. Is she still looking at him with that pity?

"Can'I ask one question, though?"

Lifting his attention just slightly, he glances at her with silent acknowledgement, bristling and tense.

"Is'ya name really Glenn?" When his gaze becomes sharp and his hands fist into the sheets, she backpedals slightly and raises her hands. "I didnae mean tae snoop, 'onest. Bu' I saw ya glove."

His glove. Inwardly, he curses himself. Every soldier with a coin to spare has their name sewn on the inside of their glove-makes it easier to return them. Makes it easier to identify bodies. He had gotten his sewn at the academy years ago. As long as he's had it, he hasn't thought about it. There aren't many reasons to take off one's gloves in Farghus. With the cold as it is, not even basic functions are motive enough to warrant it. He should have found a replacement when he'd left Fhirdiad. Of course, he hadn't changed any piece of the armor Dedue had stashed for him prior to their escape.

"What about it?" The threat is in his voice without his even meaning it to be there.

"Donnae mean not'in' by it, I swear. Jus' wan'ned to call'ya by tha righ' thing." She shuffles awkwardly, and the unspoken question is taken up by the thing on the bed dangling between man and beast.

"And you wanted to see if I was who you think I am?"

"Dimitri is'nae a common name," she affirms.

"The rumors are exactly that: rumors. Don't believe everything you hear," he mutters, holding his open palm in front of him and then slowly closing it into a fist. "Dimitri is dead."

"So is Glenn."

She sighs, obviously not satisfied by that answer, but relents nonetheless. "So… Issit Glenn or 'andsome?"

"I do not care."

"You don't deserve a name."

She chuckles under her breath; although, it's heard nonetheless. Walking toward the left side of the room, she says, "Well then… I do s'ppose re-introductions are in orda, 'andsome. Ya're bein' here a time 'n all…"

"Glenn," he murmurs, though the name tastes foul on his tongue.

When he says it, he looks up and sits still, transfixed on the woman standing at the window. Her hands grasp the curtains, buried in the rich blue. His eyes rake down her dress from high collar and bared arms to the deer-tan panels of her skirt which cast shadows in on itself and on the booted heels she donned. Red hair falls down past her shoulders in waves deeper than drifts, undone-uncommon in Farghus-and unstyled. Slowly, she pulls apart the curtain, and the sliver of the outside world widens into a spotlight. Sun illuminates the room, and she basks in its direct caress, pale skin glowing under the radiance. It warms her face, draws out the deep freckles on her cheeks and catches on the fiery tips of her lashes. Her silhouette leaves an imprint, cuts him; thin and sharp, it draws a line in the sand between them. She is plain. She lacks in most standards of what nobility may call "beauty." And yet he stares like he's standing on the other side of the window, enraptured by the carefree smile and the shadows he has left beneath her jaw.

She is a picture worth painting, he decides. But he does not know what he would title it.

The answer comes faster-is simpler-than he expects.

"Chuirinn falt mo chinn fo d'chasan."

She turns to him, and he has to fight the urge to shrivel up and hide. Tilting her head, her bangs fall off to the side. Green eyes catch the light and reflect the land he can see outside the window: icicles over the window pane dripping, snow only patching the distant hills, threads of green-incomparable to her gaze-daring to break the earth where white has receded. When she looks at him, it takes him open, like a butcher cuts open an animal; like someone carves a boar at the head of a holiday table.

"Agus craicionn mo dhà làimh."

She walks toward him, heels thumping in rhythm, he thinks, with that unfamiliar sensation in his chest. Stopping short of him, she maintains that smile and offers her hand, tanner and more calloused than his own, palm-down in the empty space between them. He stares at it, and when she speaks, he knows the title of that picture...that feeling that stirs the voices in his head and makes him toe the line between wanting to run out the door and stay in that moment:

"Hope."

Dimitri takes her hand.


End file.
